October 14, 1957 - ELVIS Presley recorded one of rock'n'roll's pivotal and influential songs, Jailhouse Rock, 54 years ago today. A near-perfect rock'n'roll tune, its release was accompanied by a promotional video - supposedly the first ever rock promo video - which featured Presley in a dance routine that still holds its ground more than half a century down the track. This dance sequence video, taken from the movie of the same name, is erotic - some would say homo-erotic, and often cited as Elvis's greatest moment on screen. For its time, the movie Jailhouse Rock was considered scandalous; a convict as a hero, the use of the word 'hell' as a swear word, and a naughty, naughty scene of Presley lying in bed with co-star Judy Tyler - all were considered risqué at the time. First scenes to be shot were for the dance sequence to the title song. So impressed with the scene when he paid a visit to the set, dance king Gene Kelly applauded when a run-through of the song was performed. A day after the filming began, Presley was rushed to the hospital after a dental cap became loose from a tooth, and he inhaled it into his lung. After surgery to remove it, and a few days in the hospital, he was released, returning to work a few days later.
1939 - THIS is the day in 1939 when Broadcast Music, Inc, to be known as BMI was organised, to compete with ASCAP (American Society of Composers and Publishers). Both organisations began collecting money for songwriters. And one of rock's most influential iconic songwriters opened the show for Bill Haley & the Comets in Lubbock, Texas on this day, in 1955. Buddy Holly went on to have an amazingly creative recording career which lasted just 18 months, but ended up influencing many future rock'n'roll acts, on many levels, including the Beatles. Artist manager Eddie Crandell saw the show that night and arranged for Holly to record his first demo. The following is Buddy Holly and the Crickets in a rare performance on the Arthur Murray Dance Show. Check out the the introduction.
1959 - MULTI-TALENTED Bobby Darin hit #1 on the UK singles chart today, with the old jazz classic tale about a murder, Mack The Knife. It didn't take long before the song became #1 around the world. Lifted from Kurt Weill's Threepenny Opera, Darin's version of Mack The Knife won the Grammy Award for Record of the Year in 1960.
1971 - Radical American talk show host, Dick Cavett, did a series of interviews with John Lennon and Yoko Ono covering some amazing subjects for the day. Here's Lennon dispelling any myths about the source of the song Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds, drugs, pornography, and life itself.
1972 - THEY call Australia's Adelaide, the city of churches, and it was here that Joe Cocker was arrested when he and his Leon Rusell-led band lobbed for the mad Dogs & Englishmen concert at Memorial Drive. Police claimed at the time to have confiscated marijuana, heroin and hypodermic syringes. Of course these claims were never proven, but Joe had long hair and sang rock'n'roll so of course he was an easy target. Here's a classic interview with Joe, conducted in Sydney, and, well, you make up your own mind. Some really dumb questions from a very dumb media. You can also spot well known Oz record company execs Barry Peacher and one of the industry's true gentlemen, Roger Langford.
1972 - DEMONSTRATING clearly how a good song can have many lives, Papa Was A Rolling Stone was first released in 1971, and became a minor hit, but when it was released on this day in 1972, all 12 minutes of it for the Temptations, it shot to #1 on Billboard's charts. Written by Motown songwriters Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong as a single for Motown act The Undisputed Truth in '71, the #1 Temptations version won three Grammy Awards, and has remained an enduring and influential soul classic. It ranked #168 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, one of the Temptation's three songs on the list. In retrospect, The Temptations' Otis Williams considered the song to be the last real classic the group recorded. For more Temptations, go to our archives and search engine.
1977 - LINDA Ronstadt, as any regular *MUSICBACKTRACK* reader would know, is one of my favourite females singers of all time(and by the way, one of the most gorgeous looking women, with a personality to match). This was the day in '77 Ms. Ronstadt sang the American national anthem at the third game of the World Series. No video is available so we bring you her version of this Buddy Holly song from the same year. Recorded in Atlanta Georgia, this is It's So Easy.
1977 - BING Crosby, the great so-called crooner and entertainer friend of Bob Hope and Frank Sinatra, =died of a heart attack today at the age of 76. Being one of the very first pop music stars of last century, Mr. Crosby features heavily in our archives, so go search him out. It is now 30 years to the day since Prince released the album Controversy, but sadly we cannot play any of his videos. I wish we could play Prince videos on *MUSICBACKTRACK* but unfortunately he refuses to allow his videos to be played or embedded by anybody. more power to him, but it just means he is the only act who doesn't appear on *MUSICBACKTRACK* which is a loss to us all - and him. This is also the day that the great Leonard Bernstein left the planet for greener pastures. Bernstein is probably best known to us all as the longtime music director of the New York Philharmonic, conducting concerts by many of the world's leading orchestras. Bernstein also wrote the music for West Side Story, a musical based on William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, and one of the great musicals of all time - some would say the very best. Bernstein died today in 1990, at the age of 72. And to commemorate here's a song from West Side Story, I Feel Pretty, with the gorgeous Natalie Wood.
1997 - SOME say the movie Casablanca was the best movie ever made, but it's really a matter of opinion, right? One fact most people do not realise is that the movie had a stunning soundtrack, and this is the day it was re;eased for the first time, 55 years after the movie was released. Casablanca is a 1942 American romantic drama film directed by Michael Curtiz, starring Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman and Paul Henreid, and featuring Claude Rains, Conrad Veidt, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre and Dooley Wilson, and set during World War II. It focuses on a man torn between, in the words of one character, love and virtue. He must choose between his love for a woman and helping her and her Czech Resistance leader husband escape from the Vichy-controlled Moroccan city of Casablanca to continue his fight against the Nazis.One of the most beloved American films, this captivating wartime adventure of romance and intrigue defies standard categorisation. Following is a trailer for the movie, and then a montage of some of the best lines in any movie.
